MASKS: Case closed

My response to the letter by Wendy Smith against wearing masks, dated Oct. 3: She claims, “Six masks (brand new or freshly washed) worn by five kids and one adult … were examined by a lab.”

She further claims that upon examination the masks contained all manner of pathogens: meningitis, E-coli, tuberculosis, Lyme disease, sepsis, Legionnaires’ disease, pneumonia bacteria). Seriously? It found all of that on just six masks?

The implausibility of this calls into question the source of the study and its validity. Her argument would have it that all of this alleged “yuck” found on the masks means that wearing masks is actually more dangerous than not wearing them.

Time to apply some common sense. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the masks were properly cleaned, and that these pathogens actually were found on the masks, reason would demand that mask-wearing protected both the wearer and those close to them. This is because, if the outer fibers contained the pathogens, that means that the wearer was protected from breathing them in by the mask.

If the inside fibers contained the pathogens, that would mean the source of them was the one wearing the mask, and by having worn the mask they protected others from having these pathogens breathed on them. While her intent was to make a case against mask wearing, in reality, it turns out that she actually made an excellent case for wearing masks.

R.E. CHANNELL

Coeur d’Alene